{Cheva-YEA! Part 1}

Our bestest friends, our Washington family, finally came to visit us in Idaho! They might tell you it was more like a vacation to Yellowstone Park and a little stop at our house, but I know better. It was so great to see them again! It took no time at all and the kids were best friends again... it made me so happy! We squeezed some serious amounts of partying into 5 days, so I'll have to break up the posts.

Here's our crew (a little early in the morning, but the only picture I have of all of them together)!
Naomi, Louis, Isabelle, Elizabeth, Araiana, and Andre



The few minutes we were actually at our house, the kids were busy playing Wii, chasing the animals, and cooling off in the ditch. That's how we roll... the little plastic swimming pool I bought got a leak and I just never got around to replacing it. So now we're ditch people. It's important the Chevaliers got the true Idaho experience.


Which is why we also had a BBQ and bonfire with a few of our great neighbors... that turned out to be so big and hot that the kids couldn't even get near enough to roast their marshmallows. So we made them their own tiny fire on the side.




Always the hostess, I was ready for them with all the fixings for smores. (After seeing all the pictures of this week I am now enforcing a strict "No Pictures of Alynn Below Her Shoulders" policy. My own mother was there! Why didn't anybody remind me to sit up straight?!? This is 3 weeks before my due date, by the way.)



For one night we divided up and Todd and Jeremy took Elizabeth and Andre on a camp out with my brother-in-law, niece, and dad. Immer and I were secretly thrilled not to have to go camping! They had a blast at Sheep Falls on the wheelers, fishing, and shooting.





Check out Andre back there loading magazines for Elizabeth while she shoots. That's the beginning of true love, folks. They have the same birthday, and we've been telling them for years that they will get married -- I'm not sure Andre even knows he has any say in the matter! Won't this picture be perfect for their wedding video?


It was a pretty dusty trip, so when they got home the kids convinced Todd and Elyse to rinse off a layer of dirt with them on the trampoline with the sprinkler on underneath!

While they were gone camping Immer and I took the other kids to the spray park (more on that later) and on a picnic to the nature park. You know sometimes when you go to the park there's that weird kid that talks to everybody and anybody and is wearing a box on his head for a hat?


Um, yeah. Now that's my kid.
Goob.